Doha – Yesterday marked the one-year of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. For Gazans, this has been a year of untold suffering that has laid bare the world’s double standards, exposed media bias, and been filled with empty rhetoric and useless speeches. It has been a year in which thousands of Palestinian lives were lost, homes and infrastructure were reduced to rubble, and an entire population was pushed to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, as of October 6, the death toll in Gaza has reached 41,870, with 97,166 injured, the majority being women and children. The United Nations estimates over 42 million tons of rubble now lies across Gaza as a result of Israeli bombardment – 14 times the amount accumulated between 2008 and the start of the genocide last year.

The scale of destruction is staggering. UN satellite data shows two-thirds of Gaza’s pre-war buildings – over 163,000 structures – have been damaged or completely destroyed. Nearly half of those were multi-story buildings. Tragically, in some areas, entire families have been wiped from civil records after all members were killed.

The humanitarian situation remains dire. Nine out of ten Gazans have been displaced at least once, with some forced to relocate up to 10 times over the past year. An estimated 1.9 million people are now displaced within Gaza, with nearly the entire population in need of humanitarian assistance. Food insecurity is widespread, with many facing starvation.

International aid efforts have been hampered by restrictions on access as a result of Israeli protocols and blockades. Aid trucks often sit idle at border crossings while people inside Gaza go hungry. The UN warns it could take decades and tens of billions of dollars to rebuild what has been destroyed.

Amidst this devastation, Morocco World News (MWN) had the privilege of speaking with two young Palestinian women from Gaza – Mayar Humaid and Angham Abdelal. Now relocated and studying in Qatar, they shared their experiences of the past year and reflections on the conflict that has torn apart their homeland.

Mayar’s story: ‘Even the sound of planes still terrifies me’

Mayar Humaid left Gaza in December of 2023, accompanying her injured mother who needed medical treatment in Egypt. Her mother had been injured due to inhaling phosphorus, necessitating their urgent departure. The journey out of Gaza was harrowing, with Mayar recounting, “When I left Gaza, I was literally starving. I felt complete hunger. There were no food resources available, and I was traveling on the assumption that I would eat in Egypt.”

After two days of waiting at the Rafah crossing, Mayar was struck by the stark contrast between the dire situation in Gaza and the abundance of aid just outside the border. “I can’t describe the number of aid trucks I saw on the road. You come out of a place with no food sources, and outside the food is there in the sun. It’s spoiling, being stolen, going to people who don’t deserve it. And hunger is spreading while we can’t get the aid in.”

Once in Egypt, Mayar and her mother faced unexpected challenges. “The suffering in Egypt was, for me, worse than the war in Gaza,” Mayar told MWN. They spent six months in Egypt, during which her mother’s condition deteriorated. “She was suffering in the literal sense of the word suffering. Every day she couldn’t live, she would tell me, ‘I feel my heart is like fire. My children are under bombardment and I’m living here.’”

The separation from their family in Gaza weighed heavily on her mother. “I would bring food and she would say to me, ‘I’m eating while your brothers and sisters don’t have food,’” Mayar shared.

Tragically, Mayar’s mother passed away in May. “The day my mother died was the day the Rafah crossing was closed,” Mayar said. “I thanked God that she died before knowing that it was closed because if she had known it was closed, she would have collapsed.”

Mayar spoke of the complex emotions surrounding her mother’s death: “There was deep sadness in my heart, but my greatest sadness was that my siblings and everyone in Gaza couldn’t say goodbye to her and that she died with her longing unfulfilled.”

The loss of her mother in such circumstances has profoundly affected Mayar. “There’s no greater difficulty than losing your mother, especially when you lose her and you’re alone. We were alone in Egypt, in an unfamiliar world. Some Egyptians saw any Gazan as just dollar signs. The treatment was incredibly cruel and humiliating.”

Now, nearly a year since leaving Gaza, Mayar’s life has been completely upended. “My life has changed completely. I’ve been away from my family for almost 10 months now and feel a complete disconnect. I’m living in a world very different from the details of my family’s life. I can’t adapt at all, even though life around me is easier here. But with every bite of food, every memory, every detail of my day, I wish they were here.”

The trauma of the war still haunts her: “Even now, I can’t get past the sound of any plane I hear quickly. That sudden movement of fear, like you’re waiting for the strike.” Mayar spoke of the overwhelming sense of loss and uncertainty: “We’ve all become people who need rehabilitation. Maybe one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is the constant feeling of grief that we’re separated from each other. Sometimes I have thoughts like – is it even possible for us to be reunited again? Will I even see them again?”

The constant threat to her family’s safety weighs heavily on Mayar’s mind. “Sometimes I think about how I’m here alone in Doha while all my family is in Gaza in one house. I think about how a single misplaced rocket could make me the only surviving person, making me possibly the only one left alive from my family at any moment,” she says. “Just one rocket could end the lives of a hundred and fifty people from my family, as has happened in many stories and to many people.”

Reflecting on her time in Gaza before leaving, Mayar shared a stark contrast: “About a year ago on this day, it was my brother’s wedding. The war started, and we still hadn’t returned the dresses to the wedding tent. We hadn’t arranged the house immediately after leaving, and everything was there as it was in a house after a wedding. Now, of course, the house no longer exists.”

Mayar expressed frustration with the international response to Gaza’s plight: “After this experience, I’ve come to see that there is no international response.” She says the main and only response that she has seen is mere words – denunciation and condemnation of Israel’s crimes. She continued, “These things and the reactions of Arab countries… This is shocking and still shocking. The feeling of betrayal is indescribable.”

Looking to the future, Mayar struggles to plan ahead: “I try not to think about the future. In the simplest things, I say thank God that I’m here, in university. At least I know what will happen to me in the next two years. When I was in Egypt, I felt lost. In all Arab countries you’re an outcast – you have no residency, you’re not allowed, you’re not welcome. You pay huge sums just to enter a country that doesn’t welcome you or give you any privileges.”

Despite the hardships, she emphasized that Gazans don’t want to become refugees: “None of us want to be displaced or seek asylum or need any other country. Even if it’s destroyed, we’re ready to return tomorrow, even if it’s destroyed, because there’s nothing like it. But all the plans are unclear. The future is completely unknown.”

Mayar stressed that media coverage fails to capture the full reality of Gaza. “No matter what the screens have shown and no matter what the media has documented, all the media doesn’t even represent five percent of what’s happening on the ground in terms of the scale of massacres and atrocities,” she said.

She also touched upon the resilience and ingenuity of Gazans, describing how they made the most of limited resources before October 7. “Before the war, Gaza existed like heaven without open crossings, without anything. Our situation was to create the best thing from the least thing, from the will and determination of the Palestinian people,” Mayar explained.

Angham’s story: ‘So what will life look like without a home?’

Angham Abdelal, another Palestinian student from Gaza now in Qatar, shared her own painful experiences of the past year to MWN.

“Life hasn’t been easy at all this year. When I think about what my family and I have been through, I feel the density of this year, its darkness and heavy sadness. In fact, I left Gaza just two months before the war, and this was the first time in my life I had traveled,” she says.

She described the anguish of being separated from her family when the war began. “I experienced anguish, fear, insomnia, crying, and anticipation. I experienced the feeling of being prepared for disaster every second.”

Angham recounted the devastating loss of her young niece and nephew: “I can’t forget or get past the moment I lost the two children dearest to my heart in this world, Sanaa and Musa, who weren’t even six years old… They were my whole life.”

She continued, “I cared for them, loved them, and dreamed of making a future for them where they wouldn’t feel the absence of their mother who died two years ago from cancer…I hadn’t even healed from the pain of losing her yet, when the news came of her children’s martyrdom in November in a bombing of their neighbors’ house where they were playing. I still keep their pictures and imagine they’re still alive and that I’ll return to them after finishing my studies and the war, and I’ll find them waiting for me.”

More tragedy struck when Angham’s father died: “A few months later, my father died, and I felt like I had fallen to the bottom of sadness… Not just because of his death, but because he died and was buried in Ramallah, where he was receiving treatment. This is a painful reality for me, as his burial in Ramallah means I will never be able to visit his grave as long as I live, according to the policies that prevent Gaza residents from entering the occupied Palestinian territories.”

Reflecting on the international response, Angham expressed disillusionment: “In truth, I was struck by a terrible disappointment towards the world’s concepts of humanity and equality. I feel that all the principles that the world issues for us to respect, agree on, and ratify are all fake, meaningless. I feel that we are now suffering from a shock in the meaning of life and the existence of the world.”

She emphasized that the humanity of Gazans is often overlooked: “I wish people knew how beautiful the Gaza Strip is, how simple life is there, and how much people love life – you can see it even written on the roads,” she said sorrowfully. “The youth in Gaza are full of energy, hope and creativity. We have big dreams and ambitions to change a lot in the world. Gaza’s children are innocent, rejoicing with less than the minimum standards for a dignified life. But they rejoice, and people in Gaza love joy and know how to overcome their sorrows…”

When asked about the future, Angham told MWN she struggles to find hope while the genocide continues. I wanted to answer this question at a time when the war had actually ended, so that I could expel fear from my heart and allow a little hope to speak on my behalf. But… the war is still going on, and my family is living in a tent on the sand, and our house has become rubble like the houses of most people in Gaza. So what will life look like without a home?”

She concluded with a plea for Gaza’s recovery: “All I hope is that Gaza will be reconstructed as soon as possible, that people will not remain long without houses to shelter them from the winter cold, that life will return to Gaza, to its roads and streets… I sincerely hope that the war ends and that the world respects our grief for what we have lost, and that Gaza will have the largest share of the world’s humanitarian attention so that this war will really be the last thing that the residents of the Gaza Strip will experience of sadness.”

As the genocide somberly enters its second year, the testimonies of Mayar, Angham, and countless other Palestinians paint the profound image of the human toll and suffering. Their stories of loss, separation, and resilience offer a window into the experiences of over two million Gazans whose lives have been upended.